Of Shepherds

My paternal grandfather was a sheep farmer. As a result, my father spent much of his youth tending the sheep, as did many of my ancestors before him. The noble profession of shepherding has long been a fascination of mankind, as demonstrated by numerous references in popular media and literature (if we start with one Hollywood actor, a recent movie of Matt Damons was named “the Good Shepherd”, while the genius lead character “Good Will Hunting” [one of my favorite movies] claimed to harbor ambitions of becoming a shepherd – but more on this below).

My maternal grandfather is a dairy farmer. This to me is would seem to be no-less a noble profession. Throughout most of my country’s history, milking cows were a privilege of the better off, nobler families – and my grandfather is a highly respected man in his community. Yet, dairy farming has failed to capture the imagination of the masses the way shepherding has (for example, in ‘Independent People’, a flagship novel of Icelandic Nobel prize winning author Halldór Laxness, proud and resilient sheepfarmer Bjartur´s luck starts turning for the worse once he purchases a cow).

The human fascination with shepherding may be rooted the unusual connection shepherds seem to have to the realm of the spiritual and paranormal. Whether it is the sheep who act as a vessel facilitating this connection to world beyond I do not know – but examples abound. Icelandic shepherds historically had frequent interactions with the otherwise elusive elven folk (who in my country are considerably more treacherous and less fairy-like than those popularized by Tolkien). Another Nobel-prize winning novel, Paolo Coelho’s ‘The Alchemist’, tells of a shepherd whose mysterious dream leads him on a mystical quest to encounter his heart´s treasures. And as immortalized in countless psalms and the world’s most widely published book, a group of shepherds were there to witness the birth of Jesus.

You might think that those worthy gentlemen I mentioned last were the most famous shepherds of all – but you would be wrong. As it happens, the first half of the same book is even more widely read than the second half – and it tells the tale of another man who tended sheep a bit further to the south and west in the years after he married his wife Zipporah.

Fires and aging notwithstanding, the bush is in remarkable shape.



In the version of his story that I have been told, it was indeed one of the sheep that led him to a brushfire that caused rather less damage yet had significantly more historic significance than those ravaging Greece today – for it was then that God first spoke to Moses.

While I won't judge whether other shepherds such as the Prophet Mohammed and the Lord Krishna were more significant, the nice thing about Moses is that everyone (or at least, Christians, Jews, Muslims and Bahá’ís) seems to agree on his story - and it was in his footsteps that I recently made a pilgrimage, climbing the biblical Mount Sinai.

We started our accent shortly after midnight, climbed through the night, and arrived at the summit to witness the dawn. The stars were magical, and the moon cast an eerie glow over the desolate mountain ranges we soon found ourselves looking down on.

The sunrise was - well - divine.

The heavens looking down on Mount Sinai

T, the girl who climbed mountains - and whose birthday it is today(September 16th)